


This Broken Boy (Who Keeps On Trying to Forget)

by starrywrite



Series: Robot AU [3]
Category: Video Blogging & YouTube RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Platonic Romance, Robot AU, Robots, Self-Hatred, implied depression, self-deprecating thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2201598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrywrite/pseuds/starrywrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Failure" is inability to fulfill directive. Human has no programmed directive. Human evolutionary directive is to live. You are alive. Everything else is bonus.</p><p>companion piece/deleted scenes for my fic "Even Robots Need Blankets"</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Broken Boy (Who Keeps On Trying to Forget)

**Author's Note:**

> I CANNOT ESCAPE THIS AU I’VE LITERALLY ENTERED A LIFE SENTENCE WITH THIS AU PLS SEND HELP. ahem. i mean, another installment in my Robot AU saga :D this also has a duel purpose as it’s also installment in my “courtney is an angsty little shit so she writes self indulgent angst to try and make things better” series. 
> 
> inspired by this: http://howellsprincess.tumblr.com/post/92957550545
> 
> i hope you enjoy!! <3

Dan doesn't understand why this keeps happening. 

His day was going really well so far and he was actually in a pretty good mood, but then like any other day it went to shit and now he's lying on his bed, wishing he could go to sleep and never wake up. And the worst part is, half the time he doesn't even know why this happens. 

He comes to the conclusion that he’s just a selfish little brat, because he really doesn’t need to be so fucking sad all of the time. He’s got a family that loves him and friends that care about him. He has Phil (though truth be told, he doesn’t really deserve Phil. He has a good job that pays well and a lovely flat. Overall, his life really isn’t that bad.

So what’s the problem? No, he knows what the problem is; the problem is he has no idea what’s wrong with him. 

For the most part he’s fine. He can wake up smiling over a cup of coffee, and he can go to work and make it through the day without cursing at anyone, and he can make it a full twenty-four hours feeling okay. But sometimes, some days, it happens - _it_ meaning something goes wrong (because apparently his life is the poster child for Murphy’s Law and if something can go wrong, it will go wrong) or he finds himself being consumed by his thoughts and he’s convinced that even his closest friends despise his existence, and then the sadness just hits him like a ton of bricks, and suddenly he isn’t okay and he wants to crawl into a hole and let the earth swallow him up because he just doesn’t want to exist anymore. And god he hates it because he feels like such an overdramatic little baby, crying his eyes out when he doesn’t need to be and wishing he could just go to sleep and not wake up at the smallest of inconveniences. He hates that he’s like this. He hates himself. 

But mostly, Dan hates that he doesn’t know _why_ he’s like this, and if anything tears him apart inside it’s the fact that he can’t seem to find common ground on why this happens to him. Because when he thinks about it, he realizes that there’s no exact cause for his sadness - nothing like he was abused or he had his heart broken or at least something more than the fact that his mind is working against him at all times and is dead set on making him miserable. Because when he thinks about it, he realizes he should be perfectly fucking fine. But he's not, he's not perfectly fucking fine - not even close. And the more these little sad spells keep happening, the more he's starting to realize that he's not fine at all. 

He feels so stupid when these sad spells happen (that’s what he calls them, because truth be told he doesn’t know what else to refer to them as) because when they do happen, they’re usually caused by something big - something going wrong with work, for example - but then something as minimal as him thinking his friend doesn’t want to talk to him will ruin his entire day, and he’ll mope and sulk for hours on end until he tells himself to get the fuck over it and try to find a distraction. But even distractions are temporary, and _fuck_ he just wants to be happy. Why can’t he be happy?

He ends up wasting an entire day away when he gets like this, lying in bed throwing pity parties and feeling sorry for himself because in addition to being too sad to function, he also pushes away everyone and anyone who could possibly care about him and then the loneliness eats away at him, and that makes him even more sad and it’s literally just a vicious circle. And so he spends a day lying in bed, sometimes crying, sometimes just numb and not feeling and not cating, and by the late hours of the night he’s beating himself up because he’s a waste of space and doesn’t deserve his place in the cosmos.

The sound of beeping brings him out of his thoughts, and Dan forces himself to roll over from lying on his front to resting on his side, facing the door where Phil, his robot friend, enters his room. “Hello, Dan!” Phil says, his glowing blue eyes doing that thing where they go half-lidded but in a way that he expresses that he’s happy and smiling. It doesn’t take much to make Phil happy; Phil is a bit of a defective bot, meaning he wasn’t made the way normal robots were made - he stops to look at clouds shaped like animals and he points out the dandelions growing along the street. It was almost as if he was made with a bit of human in him - like he actually has a heart. And it doesn’t take much to make Phil happy, usually walking into the same room as Dan is enough to make him beep happily.

Dan doesn’t understand it; he doesn’t understand how he makes Phil happy in anyway when he isn’t even happy. He doesn’t understand how Phil loves and cares for him so much when he barely loves himself. 

“Dan has been in bed all day.” Phil observes - another one of Phil’s ‘defects’ is that he can’t help but to speak in the third person. Annoying at times, but overall really adorable. “Dan is sick?” 

Dan shakes his head before he can stop himself. “No, I’m not sick.” he says, his voice hoarse from crying so much and from not speaking for hours on end. 

“Dan is okay?” Phil asks next. 

Dan just sighs. He doesn’t want to burden Phil with his stupid problems, because they are stupid and he’s spent so much time whining to Phil about why he’s upset. He keeps trying to tell himself to remember that he won’t always be bad and he’ll be okay in a while, so he doesn’t need to cry to Phil - but he does, he always does. He can’t stop himself from going to Phil when he needs someone. Mostly because Phil genuinely cares, and he listens, and he offers good advice when he needs it, and he never makes Dan feel like he’s being dumb or annoying. Also because he just has so many fucking thoughts in his mind, they’re all spinning around like a tornado and moving at top speed and he can’t focus on anything, and fuck he just wants it all to stop. He needs it to stop. But he doesn’t know how to make it stop.

“I’m just a bit sad.” he finally says, and he presses his face into one of his pillows. He sighs heavily, _Don’t cry, don’t cry._ he tells himself.

Dan can hear Phil making his way over to the bed, and then he feels his mattress dip, letting him know that Phil is now sitting next to him. “Why is Dan sad?” he inquires, and Dan wants to tell him that it’s nothing, that it’s no big deal, that he’s fine, but he can’t tell him that. Because it’s not nothing, and even if it isn’t a big deal, he’s not fine. 

“Because,” Dan sighs, and he presses his face deeper into his pillows because his throat feels tight and fuck no, he’s not going to cry _again_. He’s already cried too fucking much this month. “I’m,” he stops himself for a moment. “I’m a failure.” he finally says, because it’s true; he’s such a failure. He’s a failed friend, a failed son, a failed brother - a failed fucking human being. He fails daily at being functional; unable to make a single phone call without having an anxiety attack, unable to deal with anything mildly bad happening without jumping to the worst possible conclusion, unable to _exist_ without fucking up one thing or another. He’s a failure, he’s such a failure. And the sooner Phil realized it, the better. Because then he can realize that he deserves better than Dan, better than anything he could ever offer him, and then he’ll go off and be with someone better than him.

“Failure?” Phil repeats, as if he’s not understanding, but Dan doesn’t understand how he can’t understand because Phil knows everything and he should know after all the time the two of them have spent together that Dan is nothing but an utter fucking failure. A fuck up. A piece of shit. A waste of a vessel. A waste of a human entity. “Dan is not a failure.” he says.

“Yes, Dan is.” he replies immediately, because he doesn’t know when to stop, and he has to continue to put himself down and beat himself up, as if he wasn’t already a toxic orb in Phil’s - for lack of a better term - life. Add that one to the constantly growing list of reasons why Dan’s a fail. 

“No.” Phil says, and it’s all he says for a moment, which is unlike him because Phil definitely talks a lot and he always has something more to say than just one syllable words. But he doesn’t say anything else until Dan rolls over so he’s lying on his back and facing him, and then he speaks up once more, “Dan isn’t a failure.” he says firmly, and when Dan opens his mouth to protest once again, he quickly continues, “Failure is inability to fulfill directive. For example, if Phil could not help Dan solve a problem, Phil would be a failure because his directive is to help Dan. But Dan is a human and humans has no programmed directive. A human’s evolutionary directive is to live. Dan is alive, Dan isn’t a failure.” Dan’s found that he’s been rendered speechless by this, and when Phil picks up on his silence, he continues, “Dan is nice, and smart, and funny, and selfless. Dan is so many good things and Dan is none of the bad things he thinks he is. And most importantly, Dan is alive. Dan isn’t a failure because Dan is alive, and human directive is to live. Everything else is a bonus.”

“Phil,” is all Dan can say, and even then, his voice gets caught in his throat because now he’s crying - of course he is - but it’s not a sad kind of crying; it’s more of a happy kind of crying, the kind of crying you do when you stop holding everything in and let yourself _feel_ , the kind of crying to you do when you feel truly and utterly loved. 

“Don’t cry Dan,” Phil tells him. “It’s okay. Dan is okay.” 

Phil quite hasn’t grasped the concept that people can cry when they’re sad, but also when they’re happy, and Dan doesn’t take the time to explain it because he just feels so overwhelmed with emotion, both good and bad. But right now it’s as if the bad emotions that are still trying to linger in the depth of his mind are slowly being outshined by all of the good emotions that are marching onto the battlefield, ready to fight for what Dan deserves: happiness. And suddenly Dan’s mind is no longer a dark and scary cavern, but a place of bright, bright light, and it’s all thanks to Phil for tuning on the light. 

Dan brings his hand up to wipe his eyes. “I love you, Phil.” he says, his voice breaking a bit, and he pushes himself up into a sitting position so he can press himself against Phil and hug him tightly, ignoring the way the cool metal of the bot’s body makes him shiver. 

He can feel Phil’s hand rubbing his back. “Phil loves Dan.” he says. “And Phil will love Dan when he is happy, and Phil will love Dan when he is sad. But Phil doesn't want Dan to be sad anymore, because Dan is going to be okay.”

Dan sniffles, shutting his eyes tightly and letting the tears roll freely down his cheeks. “Y- yeah.” he says. “Dan is going to be okay.” and it’s true. It might not happen right away, but it will happen. Dan is going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a bit unrelated but i just wanted to say that i have writing commissions opened!!! check them out here if you're curiouis :D <3 http://howellsprincess.tumblr.com/commissions


End file.
